Palisades Charter High School

Palisades Charter High School (PCH) is a financially independent, comprehensive four-year high school. Its scenic views of the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica mountains are matched only by the school’s long history of high academic standards and educational excellence.

“With the old phone system, we had a hard time completing moves, adds, and changes. With the ShoreTel IP Unified Communications system, we don’t even need a technician onsite to handle these tasks -- I take care of these things myself.”
— Maisha-Cole Perri, Technology Coordinator, Palisades Charter High School.

The school wanted a new telephone system that would be easy to manage in-house and which would meet the unique communications requirements of the educational environment. Because PCH is located in a part of Los Angeles County prone to fires, the school also sought to enhance its efficiency and effectiveness in responding to emergency situations.

“The ShoreTel Emergency Notification Application helps us ensure the safety of students, teachers, administrators, and visitors by facilitating a quick and accurate response in the case of an emergency.”
— Maisha-Cole Perri, Technology Coordinator, Palisades Charter High School.

PCH chose ShoreTel because of its emergency-responsiveness features, cost-effectiveness, ease of use and management, and ability to integrate with its existing applications. With the help of integration partner Enterprise Communications Solutions, ShoreTel provided PCH with a number of ShoreTel Voice Switches and a ShoreTel IP Phones in every classroom. ShoreTel further unified internal communications with the school’s emergency notification response system, and custom software development services added features that addressed the school’s unique requirements.  Benefits include:

ShoreTel’s Emergency Notification Application extends 911 functionality to provide internal notification to designated individuals when an emergency call has been placed.

Teachers have access to a telephone in their classrooms when they need it, but custom call handling features keep the phones from interrupting class time. 

With the flexibility of the ShoreTel Unified Communications system, changes can be made in-house, and administrators can quickly accommodate teachers’ requests.

By integrating tasks previously performed on separate tools, ShoreTel’s Unified Communications system reduces the time teachers spend on administrative tasks, freeing them to focus on teaching.

"The ShoreTel system allows us to say yes to requests that help teachers be more responsive and effective, whereas before we’d have to wait for someone to come in and make requested changes.”

— Maisha-Cole Perri, Technology Coordinator, Palisades Charter High School.